Re:Street Epistemology
by Sohcahtoa82 on Thursday June 23, 2022 @05:42PM
(#31855513)
I had him as well in 2012.
He was fun back then, but I think a little bit of fame has gotten to his head. I think he wants to get people to really think about their beliefs, why they have them, and if it's reasonable to have them, but his methods are indistinguishable from bad faith trolls that are "just asking questions" (aka, JAQing off).
He had a small group of students who would follow him around everywhere and he would ask the class and his clique to promote and astroturf him on Reddit, Wikipedia, et al. Which is valid... I guess it's better if his students are doing it than him?
A few times on campus, he was seen coaching students who were later identified by a local antifascist group as being linked to "the Daily Stormer" -- which I have mixed feelings about; I truly believe everyone deserves to have tools for better thinking, but you're right to suspect Boghossian as possibly having agendas.
In a direct response to your last question, he did get in some hot water for bad faith academic publishing that produced questionable benefits: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_studies_affair
I'll say that people criticizing RMS doesn't make the libre software movement bad, and it doesn't invalidate his accomplishments.